Nouvelle traduction : L’ambassadrice de la France pour le Pacifique

Before that, she served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of France to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from 2015 to 2019.

Previously, she held various positions within the French Foreign Ministry : Ambassador, Special representative for the fight against maritime piracy (2013-2015), Head of the Mali and Sahel Unit, Head of the South Asia Department and Director of the interministerial team for Afghanistan and Pakistan (2011-2013). She was also Strategic and Security Affairs Adviser at the French Foreign Ministry (2010-2011).

This extensive experience with strategic affairs and in Asia allows her to interact easily within her new working environment in the South Pacific.

Posted to Nouméa in New Caledonia, when all her predecessors had been based in Paris and travelled regularly to the Pacific region, her main responsibility since arriving in October 2023 has been to set up a regional diplomatic team in the Pacific. This team, which complements the work of the 7 bilateral ambassadors in the region (Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Philippines for Micronesia, and Samoa) aims to strengthen French policy in the South Pacific and make it more transparent.

With this team and this regional delegation, Véronique Roger-Lacan’s mission has four main aspects :

1. Consolidate France’s regional policy in the Pacific : awith a total land mass of 520,000 km2, Pacific Small island States have sovereignty over 20 million km2 of exclusive economic zones. They are today a source of security-, energy- and economy-related competition, and are facing climate, food and political challenges. Against this backdrop, the Ambassador to the Pacific has, among other issues, a mandate to encourage the design and launch of major structural projects in the region (Pacific Academy, student mobility, support for broadcasting in Oceania), to step up dialogue with Pacific partners (Singapor, Japan, Korea, United States, United Kingdom, European Union and its Member States, China, etc.), to represent France at diplomatic events and in local media outlets and to run the network of French operators (AFD, IRD, IFREMER, CIRAD, Institut Pasteur, etc.) and help prepare the France-Oceania summits ever three years.
2. Represent France in regional bodies in the Pacific : in addition to Pacific States, the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the Pacific Community (PC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) each bring together Pacific territories, but also with regard to the PC and the SPREP, the so-called “metropolitan” States, including the United States and United Kingdom.
3. Implement jointly with French territories in the Pacific and in line with the organic laws in force, the French Republic’s foreign policy in order to, in accordance with the French President’s speech during his trip to the Pacific in July 2023, “support French territories in the Pacific as powers within Oceania, and levers for French influence internationally and in the Indo-Pacific”.
4. Manage the Economic, Social and Cultural Cooperation Fund for the Pacific (“Pacific Fund”), representing a varying amount of between €2 million and €3 million since 1985 and aiming to increase the integration of French Pacific territories into their regional environment as well as their influence in their region.